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Two usages that Ernest Gowers bemoaned in The Complete Plain Words, written c. 1950, but which seem unexceptional today: "phenomenal" to mean "prodigious" (rath
by dghf 9y ago
Two usages that Ernest Gowers bemoaned in The Complete Plain Words, written c. 1950, but which seem unexceptional today: "phenomenal" to mean "prodigious" (rather than simply "perceptible to the senses"), and "meticulous" to mean "scrupulous" (rather than "overly and timidly careful"). I think it's too late to save or revive their previous meanings, but it's a shame to lose those nuances.
- tptacek 9y agoAccording to M-W, "overly and timidly careful" wasn't its original meaning either; it simply meant "fearful". Both "scrupulous" (which is not precisely the same as "painstakingly careful") and "overly careful" are adopted meanings, not the originals, so why lament one and not the other?